Prospective Memory Performance of Autistic Adults in Everyday Life: The Role of Stress and Motivation.
Larissa L Faustmann, Mareike Altgassen
PMID 40439024WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic adults completed everyday memory tasks at the same rate as non-autistic adults, despite reporting higher daily stress.
The tasks were self-selected or simple text-message cues, which may have made them easier than standard lab tests. This suggests everyday planning difficulties may stem from context, not core memory deficits.
Key findings
01There were no significant differences in prospective memory performance between autistic and non-autistic participants for either experimenter-assigned or self-assigned tasks.
02Autistic participants reported significantly higher levels of perceived stress in their daily lives compared to the control group.
03For both groups, activities rated as less personally important or less motivating were associated with higher perceived stress.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample size was small (29 autistic, 30 controls), which reduces the power to detect subtle differences. The prospective memory tasks had high completion rates (70-80%), suggesting ceiling effects that may have masked potential group differences. The study did not include a laboratory-based comparison task, so it cannot determine if the lack of difference in everyday life is due to the setting being easier or if previous lab findings do not generalize. The self-assigned tasks were still part of an experiment, which may have influenced motivation and performance, blurring the line between truly self-motivated and externally imposed tasks. Participants were predominantly highly educated, which may limit generalizability to autistic adults with different educational or support backgrounds.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autistic adults have no prospective memory difficulties in all contexts. The tasks used were relatively simple, self-selected, or had high completion rates, which may not reflect the complex, unstructured, and high-demand situations where memory failures often occur in daily life. The null finding may be due to the ease of the tasks rather than an absence of deficit.